Dolphins Season Recap

Season Recap

Miami finished 7-10 on the year, finishing third in the AFC East, and will be picking 11th in the NFL Draft. This was definitely a rough year to watch, from the defense being awful at the start to Tua regressing massively. Miami had a great stretch where they blew out the Bills, and that was a fun game, which propelled them to 4 wins but also 3 of the last 4, missing the playoffs after starting 2-7, which we all weren't expecting them to make it in the playoffs. Chris Grier got fired on Halloween. Mike McDaniel got fired last week, which basically started everything from scratch, and it was one of those things that needed to happen for the complete rebuild.

New General Manager

On Friday, January 9th, Miami hired Jon-Eric Sullivan as their new General Manager. Sully (which is a name he wants to be called or JE, which I'm gonna call him Sully) came from the Green Bay Packers and has been there since 2003. He became a training camp assistant in 2003 and worked his way up the ranks, and by 2008, he became a scout in the Central Plain Region. After 4 years as a scout there, we moved him up to the Southeast region of scouting, where he held the position until 2015. In 2016, Sully became the director of college scouting and was viewed as the right-hand man for Brian Gutekunst, the General Manager of the Green Bay Packers. In 2018, he became Co-director of player personnel for the Green Bay Packers, and by 2022, he became the Vice President of Player Personnel. I'm excited for this cause. He is a draft scout, and that was a struggle Miami has been in for a while. I know I was talking and pushing for the Chad Alexander pick cause of Harbaugh, but I'm all for this hire cause Sully knows how to find talent, and he was the one who pushed for the Packers to get Jordan Love. If Sully does hit on these next couple drafts, and build the Dolphins to compete in the cold and be like how they were in the 80's then I'll be so happy, obviously this isn't the 80's but follow the Miami Hurricanes mindset and build up the trenches cause that's how you win games is if you can control the line of scrimmage.

Head Coaching Candidates

Miami has put in a request to speak with a few head coaches, including Seattle Seahawks OC Klint Kubiak, Los Angeles Rams DC Chris Shula, San Fransico DC Robert Saleh, Packers DC Jeff Heafley, John Harbaugh, and Kevin Stefanski, and has shown interest in Mike McCarthy. The Dolphins have already interviewed Klint Kubiak. My list is 1. John Harbaugh, 2. Chris Shula, 3. Klint Kubiak, 4. Mike McCarthy, 5. Robert Saleh, 6. Kevin Stefanski, 7. Jeff Heafley. Pending the Matt LeFleur situation, if he gets let go, he would move right into the 2nd spot, right behind Harbaugh, and it would be like 1a and 1b. Now that the Mike McCarthy pickup is in place, I'd like it, and to me, that is a safe option. I would be okay with it and consider it a better option than Jon Gruden. Yes, Jon Gruden would be an absolutely awful choice cause what has he done? Before you say he won a Super Bowl, thank Tony Dungy, but let's look at all that. Gruden is a .500-at-best coach. It's like the Butch Davis-Larry Coker situation. Butch built up that 2001 Hurricanes team, where Coker cashed in the check. Same if we get Tomlin, that would be a meh hire to me, would be better than Gruden, but it's still a hire that doesn't move the needle for me. 

Tua

Tua needs to go. I was absolutely against that contact we gave him, and now we're in Cap Hell cause of it. They are gonna try to find a trade partner, but it's gonna be tough cause of that contract. Everyone says Oh, we have a new coach, should we give him another shot, My thing is, how many more shots are we gonna give him? Like, the dude is on borrowed time with injuries, and the regression this year is atrocious to watch.

Free Agents

The main ones I would love to see come back are Rasul Doglas, Jack Jones, Kadar Kohou, Greg Dulcich, and possibly Riley Patterson, all pending on how much they all cost. I'm gonna let Sully and Brandon Shores (the guy who's gonna work on the financial end of everything) figure out who to bring back and let go, and who gets cut for cap relief.

Future of the Team

2026 is gonna be a down year for Miami, and hopefully we use that to get us in a position to take a Quarterback, and use free agency when we have the money to build up this team. It's still gonna be a rough couple of years for the Dolphins cause they still need to shed a lot of stuff. It's one of those things, Rome wasn't built in a day, so you're gonna have to be patient with the process, yes, it's gonna be really difficult to watch and have to go through and hope that we don't have to tear everything down again like what Miami has been doing the last 25 plus years, cause you have a lot of Dolphins fan that are losing their patient as is. If it can be adequately built up and if Sully can build that tough, competitive team that can go into Buffalo, Kansas City, New England, and Denver, all these places that have freezing weather and win and make deep playoff wins, that's gonna be bold really well for the team, and that starts in the draft and build a foundation and a culture and also finding those late round gems that are usually the ones that helps create winning teams, and will create more cap space cause rookie contracts are generally easy on the books. This is an exciting time to be a Dolphins fan because it's a breath of fresh air, and you can look at the better things that give you some optimism for the future. Fins Up.